*

‘Mr Preston?’

Philip looked up, startled out of his thoughts, at his secretary standing in the doorway of his office. She was wearing a tight skirt revealing the shape of her thighs.

‘What is it?’

‘You have a visitor, Nicholas Laverne.’

Surprised, he got to his feet and nodded, then remained standing. With a practised smile on his face he watched Nicholas enter. Nicholas Laverne, whose brother, Henry, had once been Gayle’s lover, a fact that always surprised him. After all, Nicholas had been the lusty sibling, Henry less successful with women.

Philip snapped back into the present.

‘Nicholas!’ he said, shaking his visitor’s hand and leading him to a seat. ‘How good to see you after so long.’ He was careful with his wording. How did you greet a man who had been excommunicated from the Catholic Church? His smile widened like a gate opening. ‘How are you?’

‘Thriving,’ Nicholas replied dryly.

But he didn’t return the smile, because he didn’t like Philip Preston. Never had. The auctioneer had aged, but he still had an impressive head of thick hair – once sandy, now white – and a pair of pale eyes which twinkled like tea lights. Very inviting. Very false.

‘It’s been …’ Philip paused, ‘how long?’

‘A decade.’

Philip nodded. ‘A decade.’ He repeated the words as though it was the most amazing statement he had ever heard. ‘How time passes. You look well – you’ve lost weight. I heard you were working for Sabine Monette.’

‘True.’

‘She’s one of my customers,’ he said, pleasant from practice, even though he found Nicholas Laverne an unsettling presence. ‘I was thinking of your brother the other day,’ he added. ‘Poor Henry.’

They fell silent, Nicholas thrown by the mention of his sibling, the talented elder brother who had gone to Italy as a vaunted architect, squeezing his way in among the columns and the classical façades. Henry, too vain to wear his glasses. Henry, visiting spas to keep his health intact. Henry, sporty, talented and opportunistic.

The late Henry Laverne.

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to hit a nerve,’ Philip went on. ‘How’s your uncle? I haven’t heard from him in a while.’

‘So David hasn’t been buying lately?’ Nicholas replied, his tone crisp. ‘You’ll be pleased to hear he’s still alive.’

Bastard, thought Philip, smiling at his visitor. Nicholas Laverne had always been blunt, outspoken to the point of rudeness. Philip imagined that he had prided himself on his truthfulness. But where had it got him? Looking like a deadbeat in second-hand clothes.

‘And how’s your sister, Honor? Such an attractive girl—’

Nicholas cut him off. ‘I need help …’

Philip groaned inwardly. How he hated conversations that began ‘I need help’.

‘… and I have something I think might interest you.’ Nicholas reached into his pocket and brought out a thick envelope. ‘But first I need to know that we’re speaking in complete confidence—’

‘Of course, of course—’

‘No, Philip, not “of course”,’ Nicholas countered. ‘This is important. You have to keep everything I say private, between us. Otherwise we can’t do business.’

Philip was catching a whiff of money, inviting as frying bacon on a Sunday morning.

‘You have my promise. Whatever you tell me won’t leave this room.’ He laid his manicured hands flat on the desk. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘I have this to sell,’ Nicholas replied, shaking the chain from the envelope. ‘It’s from the late Middle Ages.’

Scooping it up in his hand, Philip studied the chain with an eyeglass, noticing the initials H and possibly a B. He could tell at once that the piece was old and valuable, but when he glanced up at Nicholas he paused. Philip Preston had dealt with the art world for many years and had a heightened intuition when it came to his clients. He could sense greed because he recognised it. He could sense desperation. He could also sense trouble.

And he was holding it.

‘Where did you get this?’

‘That doesn’t matter.’

‘Actually it does,’ Philip replied, weighing the chain in his hands. Loving it. ‘Why me?’

‘We’ve known each other for a long time. Your father used to do business with my late parents and my uncle,’ Nicholas replied. ‘When you took over we carried on working with you. Henry put a lot of business your way.’

‘You, however, did not. Not when you were a priest anyway. You have to take vows of chastity and poverty, don’t you? Wouldn’t do for me.’ He grimaced. ‘But then again, now you’ve … changed direction … perhaps your fortunes have improved?’

Excommunication described as a change of direction. Nicholas almost laughed. ‘There’s more.’

‘Not another chain?’

‘Something the chain held.’

Nicholas leaned back in his seat, staring at the auctioneer. It was true, they had known each other for many years, but that wasn’t the real reason he had come to Philip Preston. Of all the dealers, collectors and auctioneers in London, Preston was the most slippery. Henry had taught his brother that, telling Nicholas stories of goods shipped out from London illegally, or imported under false names and papers. Of auction lots which had wildly exceeded their estimates because members of Philip Preston’s staff had upped the phone bidding. He had heard about a Gainsborough which had not reached its target and had been burned – which meant, in art world parlance, set aside for a number of years until it could re-emerge on the market as a new lot. No auction house could afford to have a major artist fail to reach an estimate.

And that wasn’t all; Philip Preston had perfected the art of the sleeper. Works supposedly by a master that came into his sales as In the Manner of Hogarth, or Turner or Bruegel. It meant that the work wasn’t definitely by the master, but in his style. Then Philip went into overdrive. Deftly planting the rancid little seed, rumours would start circling that perhaps the painting was genuine after all. Then gossip would follow. If Philip had judged it correctly, greedy, stupid or novice dealers would want the painting, hoping to pull a fast one on their competitors. And if a few dealers could be enticed into action, a bidding war would start.

The rumour of the sleeper would incite that most creative of illnesses, auction blindness. The sketchy provenance was uncharacteristically dismissed as the duped blundered towards their acquisition of the sleeper. Philip Preston had made a lot of money that way, and the fact that the art world relied on risk ensured further profit. It wasn’t illegal. It wasn’t fair. But it was bloody good business.

Which was how Nicholas knew that Philip Preston wouldn’t be unwilling to break the rules.

‘Inside the connectors between the links in the chain were tiny pieces of paper,’ Nicholas began. ‘When the pieces were put together they told a story which was incredible and damning.’

Philip’s merry eyes became stony. ‘Go on.’

‘The chain belonged to Hieronymus Bosch. There are papers proving this—’

‘Is this a joke?’

‘No,’ Nicholas said calmly. ‘The chain was used to hang the painting. That’s why no one spotted it for so long. People were interested in the picture, not the means by which it was hung.’

Philip was trying to keep the excitement out of his voice. ‘This writing. You’ve seen it?’

‘I found it.’

‘What did it say?’

‘It told the truth about Hieronymus Bosch.’

‘His work?’

‘His life,’ Nicholas replied, irritated as the door opened and someone walked in unannounced.

Immediately Philip waved the man away, but not before Nicholas noticed how tall he was. How heavily built, with skin so smooth it looked as though he were wearing makeup.

’s-Hertogenbosch, Brabant 1468

His father was waiting for Hieronymus at the bottom of the carved staircase, with its gargoyle heads and polished ebonised rail. He stood in his long tunic, stout in green hose, his face broad and square as a playing card. Antonius van Aken, artistic advisor to the Brotherhood of Mary, standing with his other sons behind him and the wheezing hook of his own father sitting watching them all.